In recent years, bodybuilding has become extremely popular with the general public interested in a better quality of life. The benefits of aerobic and strength training exercise have been proven to provide significant health benefits that greatly improve the quality of life of those individuals willing and able to engage in such activities.
Presently there is a variety of exercise equipment available on the market today that is designed to provide both aerobic as well as strength training exercise. Much of this equipment is expensive and complex to use. Some equipment even requires a workout regiment longer and more strenuous than the average user is capable of enduring. Since the majority of users of exercise equipment today are not professional or even amateur athletes but are instead busy individuals seeking the physiological benefits associated with exercise, the more complex types of exercise equipment causes many problems. Even though exercise has been proven to be beneficial to ones health, many users have only a limited amount of time to complete an exercise regiment and desire exercise that takes as little time as possible with the greatest amount of physical conditioning.
To achieve the most physiological benefit in the least amount of time it is necessary to utilize the most muscle mass for a given exercise. Many exercise machines concentrate on either aerobic or strength training exercise but few are capable of providing both. In general, aerobic forms of exercise train the lower body muscles. For example, exercises such as running, stair climbing, elliptical training, and conventional bicycling all provide aerobic training but train only the lower extremities. Strength training machines are usually designed to target specific muscles and provide little if any aerobic benefits.
One exercise device that can provide low impact, cardiovascular exercise as well as strength training is the stationary exercise bike. The stationary exercise bike is easy to use and enables the user to benefit from both aerobic cardiovascular exercise as well as strength training. However, as stated above, the strength training is limited to the legs and other portions of the lower body. Thus, use of a conventional exercise bike alone enables the user to get a lower body workout but fails to provide an overall fitness regimen that provides both cardiovascular aerobic exercise and anaerobic/strength training for both the upper and lower body. In other words, the conventional exercise bike alone does not allow a user to enjoy both upper and lower body physical benefits, as does the device of the present invention.
In view of the foregoing, in order to achieve such a workout the user must use two and sometimes three machines. This type of workout is usually inappropriate and/or cumbersome for today's user. For example, a multiple machine approach to cardiovascular and strength training requires a large amount of equipment storage space. Equipment storage space is normally a particularly important issue for home exercise equipment since the typical home has very limited space available for an exercise area.
The multiple device approach also increases exercise time because it requires the user to shift from one machine to the next after each workout set. In addition, down time while shifting from one machine to another negatively impacts the usefulness of the exercise regimen by allowing a rest period between exercises. The multiple machine approach to a home gymnasium also increases equipment cost to the user by requiring the user to purchase multiple machines. For these reasons and more, the use of multiple exercise machines to provide a complete workout of both upper and lower muscle groups is not practical for a large percentage of the exercising public.
Thus, for all of these reasons and others, there is a need for a space saving, cost efficient multiple use exercise bike that can provide the user with the aerobic/cardiovascular exercise of an exercise bike as well as strength conditioning of the lower and upper muscle groups normally associated with the use of multiple machines.
The exercise apparatus of the present invention overcomes the prior art limitations discussed above by providing a single exercise apparatus that enables the user to achieve cardiovascular exercise, in the form of an exercise bike, and an upper body strength training workout through use of the users own body weight. In addition, the exercise apparatus of the present invention provides more physical benefits, requires less storage space than multiple machines, and is less costly than purchasing multiple machines.
Simply stated, the exercise apparatus of the present invention is more efficient than most exercise machines available today since it enables the user to stimulate many different muscle groups in both the upper and lower extremities utilizing more muscle mass. The more muscle mass exercised, the more energy required to complete the exercise regimen and therefore the more calories burned per unit time compared to exercise machines unable to stimulate the same muscle mass. This translates to shorter workout time with greater aerobic and strength benefits.
All in all the exercise machine of the present invention or the exercise machine created using the conversion kit of the present invention provides triceps and bicep/lateral workouts where the conventional seated stationary bike, the stair climber and the elliptical exercise machine do not workout these muscle groups at all. Therefore the exercise machine of the present invention is able overcome to the shortcomings of the prior art exercise machines described above.